Good morning. We'll start the live blog today with this short report from our news desk on the upcoming Easter Partnership summit in Riga, where Ukraine will presumably figure prominently in discussions:
European Union leaders are gathering in the Latvian capital, Riga, on May 21 for a summit with their counterparts from six eastern countries.
The number one question at the two-day meeting will be how the 28-member EU should reconcile its Eastern Partnership Program -- involving Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine -- with its relations to Russia.
Their last meeting, held in Vilnius in 2013, triggered the current crisis in Ukraine, after the country's former president Viktor Yanukovych backed out of a deal on closer ties with the European Union.
Months later, violent protests forced Yanukovych out of office. Tensions flared up in the east of the country, where a pro-Russian insurgency took hold.
Russia annexed the Crimean peninsula, leading to widespread condemnation and Western sanctions as relations soured.
Russia will be watching this week's summit closely. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has warned the EU against taking steps that could harm Russian interests.
(AFP, dpa)
That concludes our live-blogging of the Ukraine crisis for May 20, 2015. Check back here tomorrow morning for more of our continuing coverage.
International Red Cross visits two men detained in eastern Ukraine
GENEVA, May 20 (Reuters) -- The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said on Wednesday it had visited two men captured in a part of eastern Ukraine hit by separatist conflict and that they were now in hospital in the capital Kiev.
Ukraine on Monday showed a video online of two prisoners it said were Russian soldiers who had killed Ukrainian soldiers in fighting in its east and said they would be prosecuted for "terrorist acts". Russia denies active military backing for pro-Russian separatist forces in Ukraine.
"A team from the ICRC which included a doctor has this afternoon visited the two men captured near Shchastya in the Lugansk region on 17th May and then transferred to Kiev," ICRC spokeswoman Jennifer Tobias told Reuters. "The aim of the visit was to assess their condition and help them establish and maintain contact with their families."
She declined to comment on the men's identity or status, adding: "We want to see everyone detained in connection with the conflict."
The Ukrainians have seized on the capture of the two men they identified as Russians, both wounded, to support their accusations of direct Russian involvement in the conflict despite a ceasefire signed in February.
Victoria Nuland, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs, speaking in Moscow on Monday, welcomed the Kiev government's public statements that the men were being well taken care of and that the ICRC would be allowed access to them.
Russia Says Ukraine Debt Repayment Law Amounts To Default
Russia has demanded that Ukraine repays all debts on time and accused Kyiv of effectively setting the stage for default with a new law.
It threatened to take the issue to international courts if necessary.
The law, approved by Ukraine's parliament on May 19, gives the government the right to miss payments to its international creditors as it negotiates the terms for restructuring $23 billion worth of foreign debt.
Russia holds a $3 billion Ukrainian Eurobond whose full repayment is due by the end of the year.
President Vladimir Putin on May 20 told a meeting with government ministers he found the new law "strange."
"To effectively announce an impending default shows a poor level of professional responsibility, all things considered," said Putin, noting that the International Monetary Fund does not lend to countries in default.
Ukraine hopes to secure the next tranche of a $17.5 billion bailout program with the IMF this summer to shore up its foreign currency reserves.
Based on reporting by Reuters and Interfax
Russian Activists: Fresh Graves Of Soldiers Killed In Ukraine Found
By RFE/RL
Russian activists investigating the deaths of three soldiers say their findings indicate that elite army reconnaissance units are operating in Ukraine, adding to evidence of direct Russian involvement in the conflict there, despite repeated Kremlin denials.
The activists say they found fresh graves of soldiers from a special forces brigade of the Russian military's Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU), which is based in Tambov, a city 400 kilometers south of Moscow.
Their claims came shortly after Ukrainian authorities detained two men they say are GRU soldiers who were wounded in a firefight while on a scouting mission in eastern Ukraine, where fighting between government forces and pro-Russian rebels has killed more than 6,100 people since April 2014.
Activists Vadim Korovin, who posted pictures of the graves online, told AFP news agency on May 20 that the burials helped show that the Russian military is carrying out "large-scale reconnaissance operations" in eastern Ukraine despite a tenuous cease-fire.
The pictures placed on the Internet on May 19 are of two graves: one near Tambov and one in Tatarstan, a region on the Volga River. The graves show the date of death as May 5, 2015, and both have been adorned with identical wreaths from the Russian Defense Ministry.
A third soldier has been buried in a village in the southern Kurgan region bordering Kazakhstan, the activist said.
Russia denies it has sent troops into Ukraine, claiming that any Russian citizens fighting alongside separatists have gone there independently.
However, Korovin said the graves and information gathered from posts by grieving relatives and friends on social-networking sites indicate that the three men were not volunteers but Russian soldiers who were killed in Ukraine in the same place at the same time while on active duty.
Korovin, who is an assistant to opposition lawmaker Dmitry Gudkov, said he spoke by phone with the mother of one of the soldiers, Anton Savelyev, who was at first keen to meet but then changed her mind after a visit to the military base.
On May 19, Russia's Defense Ministry said the two Russians in Ukrainian custody, Yevgeny Yerofeyev and Aleksandr Aleksandrov, had left the military, but still insisted on their release. On May 20, Ukraine said it had charged them with involvement in "terrorist activity."
A report released last week, based on research begun by Russian opposition politician Boris Nemtsov before his killing in February, said that more then 200 Russian military personnel have been killed in the conflict in eastern Ukraine.
With reporting by AFP and tvrain.ru
Here is today's map of the security situation in eastern Ukraine, according to the National Security and Defense Council (CLICK TO ENLARGE):
